


Detour Ahead

by glasslogic



Category: Left 4 Dead, Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Sick Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasslogic/pseuds/glasslogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean thought crawling through sewers was his least favorite kind of case, until he and Sam wake up one morning in a desolate reality populated by the living dead. Suspecting divine intervention as the cause, but having no idea of why, the two of them join forces with a small band of survivors to up their chances of making it in this strange new world that is so similar to their own. But the people who rightfully belong there have remained human because they are immune to the zombie plague, as reality-tripping interlopers - are Sam and Dean?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detour Ahead

****

 

** Part I **

Autumn in the southeast wasn’t the icy harbinger of winter it could be in the northern states, but the temperatures could still plummet, especially once the sun went down. Having finally finished up a long, thankless hunt, the only thing either Winchester brother wanted was a shower, some thick blankets and a warm room. And a few hours of sleep that didn’t come with the guilty feeling that every minute of downtime could be another person’s life. But this time the predator had turned out to be a human one, despite the indications of something more unusual at work, and the monster was dealt with by police instead of cold steel and rock salt. Case closed was good news as far as stopping the rash of murders went, but the tension of a fruitless hunt still hummed unresolved and the added misery of their current surroundings wasn’t helping to dissipate any stress.  
  
Dean kicked the radiator in their room hard enough to dent the side in.  
  
“I’m tired, filthy, cold, pissed as hell and just spent a super fun week crawling through sewers for no goddamned reason. And now the cheap-ass heater is broken and with that stupid convention this is probably the last room in the entire city!”  
  
Sam had been at Dean’s side for the entirety of the aforementioned adventure and was every bit as dirty and exhausted. He was also pretty sure his chances of getting to sleep while his brother was so keyed up were about nil. “Look, go grab a shower and--”  
  
“And wear what afterwards?” Dean demanded. “Everything we own is in worse shape than what we have on and all of it reeks like sewer!”  
  
Dean punctuated his sentence with another kick. Sam winced, though he doubted anyone would notice a few more dings. He forced his voice to stay even and reasonable. “Like I was going to say, go take a shower --a long shower-- and I’ll take everything down to the laundry--”  
  
“The laundry, Sam? What laundry? This is a fire trap in the middle of a ghetto. The only Laundromat sign I saw around here was in front of that burned-out shack down the road. Not to mention from the looks of this place you’d be more likely to bring back stab wounds than clean clothes, considering that it’s after three a.m. and even the rats moving around out there are probably armed.”  
  
“Then what do you want to do, Dean?” Sam finally snapped. “Because all I really want is some sleep and you’re making that hard to get!”  
  
Dean looked like he had something to say about that, and probably something combative and nasty from his thunderous expression. But after a moment, his expression shifted to one of resignation and he leaned against the wall with crossed arms, eyeing Sam critically. “Go get cleaned up.”  
  
Sam looked up in surprise at the change of tone, so Dean elaborated with an irritated wave of his hand. “Let’s just wash some of this crap off of us and get some sleep; we can sort the rest out in the morning.”  
  
Sam was distinctly disinclined to argue with anything that put some space between them and might lead to bed in the near future.  
  
The shower, with its near-endless hot water, was as fantastic as could be imagined and he used up an entire bar of the tiny soap scrubbing an accumulation of filth from his skin for what felt like the first time in too long. But the encompassing warmth of the water just made the cool reality of the room afterwards that much more miserable. The clothes Sam had removed, as filthy as they were, were still the cleanest things he owned, and he had barely rubbed the water off his skin before he was dragging the worn jeans and layered t-shirts back on.  
  
Dean refused to wear the clothes he had stripped off; the only thing he was willing to put on after getting dried off was a pair of silky, black boxers a former girlfriend had given him. Sam was less than impressed with their properties of thermal retention.  
  
“You’re going to freeze,” he warned, as Dean hit the light switch and bundled under the thin comforter. “It wouldn’t kill us to share.”  
  
Dean mumbled something pointed and short in reply, words muffled by the blanket over his head. Sam shrugged and curled into a ball on his own bed.  
  
Sometime during the night, he woke up to a draft of icy air as his blankets were pulled away and then a heavy, warm weight pressed in against his back before the blankets were drawn close again.  
  
“Shut up,” Dean hissed in his ear before Sam could mumble a sleepy ‘I told you so’.  
  
The last of the week’s tension seeped out of Sam’s body as the immediacy of Dean’s presence and their combined body heat finally made the cold, dark room a haven of restful sleep.

~~~~~~~

“Dean, wake up.”  
  
The tension in Sam’s voice had Dean sliding a hand under the pillow for the gun he had brought along when he switched beds before even opening his eyes, but his fingers closed on empty air. He sat up warily. Other than his gun being missing, nothing seemed immediately out of place in the room, and Dean’s shoulders relaxed a fraction as he gave his brother a quick sweep with his gaze. Sam looked fine, jittery and unhappy, but not bleeding or obviously damaged.  
  
“What’s going on, Sam?”  
  
“Things are... weird.”  
  
“No shit,” Dean scowled, “where’s my gun?”  
  
“And the bags?” Sam asked tightly. “Your clothes? Our shoes?”  
  
Dean was wide awake now. Enough sunlight was streaming through the crappy drapes for easy visibility in the room and it only took a second to confirm Sam was right. With the exceptions of the Winchesters themselves and the disarray of the blankets on the bed they had shared, there was no other trace of them in the room.  
  
“We were robbed?” Dean finally tried, at a loss.  
  
“Robbers who stopped to make your bed? I don’t think so. The soap we used is back in the bathroom too. Besides...” Sam’s eyes darted towards the window a little wildly and Dean rose, twitching the curtain aside to glance out cautiously. At first, nothing seemed unusual and he frowned and glanced back at Sam. His brother was standing by the bed and only shook his head at Dean’s questioning look, arms crossed tightly over his chest. Dean turned back to the window for a more thorough look and began to grasp the problem.  
  
Sam, for his part, was just grateful to have Dean awake and present.  
  
Their motel was in a run-down part of the city. Rates were cheaper and people had a greater respect for a person’s anonymity in such areas, and the Winchesters weren’t really worried about personal safety. Foot-traffic when they had pulled in had made the parking lot look like a crosswalk, and the drugstore a few doors down had the air of a place that never really closed. But now, at what was probably the crack-of-noon, the parking lot and the street beyond were deserted. And not the kind of deserted that was just a break in the traffic, but the kind of deserted where one almost expected to see a tumbleweed go blowing past. The windows of several of the cars outside were smashed, and Dean was almost positive that the smears over the side of a Lincoln Continental parked a few rows away and the dark puddle on the ground beneath it was blood. Something had been spray-painted on the house across the street, but it was too far away for Dean to make out the letters.  
  
It was completely dead outside. Maybe literally.  
  
There was no sign of the Impala. Dean let the curtain fall with a vicious curse and leaned his bare back against the cinderblock wall by the door, barely registering the clammy chill against his skin. “What woke you up?”  
  
Sam shrugged. “I wanted to get the laundry done, but everything was gone. I took a look outside, checked the room again in case I was just going insane, then woke you up.”  
  
“Fuck. Well, Dorothy, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”  
  
“The quote is Toto, not Dorothy.”  
  
“You’d rather be a dog than a girl? That’s harsh, Sam.”  
  
Sam gave him a dirty look but didn’t reply.  
  
There was silence for a few minutes while they both considered the situation. Dean shivered in the chill air until Sam took pity on his brother and peeled off one of his t-shirts, handing it over without comment.  
  
“Thanks, man,” Dean muttered, pulling it on.  
  
“Any thoughts?” Sam finally asked.  
  
Dean sighed, irritation in his green eyes. “Traditionally, this kind of crap happens when something with a feather stuck up its ass wants to inflict some kind of lesson on us. Waking up in _Apocalypse Now_ with nothing but what we wore to bed has ‘assholes-on-high’ written all over it. You thinking something different?”  
  
“No.” Sam sighed and sat on the bed. “That’s pretty much where I am too. I guess the next question is what the hell are we supposed to do now?”  
  
“Beats me,” Dean shrugged. “We haven’t had any angelic visitations lately that I know of--” he gave Sam a questioning look and Sam shook his head negatively, “--so unless you’ve got a better idea, I say we hole up here until whatever is pulling the cosmic strings decides to grace us with some direction.”  
  
“Try calling Cas?”  
  
Dean walked over and picked up the phone, but there was only dead air. “With what? The holy power of prayer?”  
  
“We could at least try,” Sam gritted.  
  
Dean nodded impatiently and closed his eyes, his expression conveying more a sense of great annoyance rather than any kind of attempt to contact a heavenly agent. Sam tried to focus his own whirling thoughts and reach out to Castiel, but it was hard to shove the image of that empty street from his mind. When he finally opened his eyes a few minutes later, Dean gave the still-empty room a sweeping gesture emphasizing their continuing solitude and sank onto the mattress beside him. “Any more bright ideas?”  
  
“Screw you, Dean! You can jump in any time.”  
  
Dean actually looked somewhat ashamed. “Sorry,” he said shortly. “It’s just--”  
  
Sam nodded, accepting the apology without needing to hear it spelled out. He felt it too, an awful, crawling sensation in the still air. Something was very, very wrong, and they had no weapons, and no clues. The stress the previous day had been bad, but this sense of helplessness was much worse.  
  
“If we are going to hang out here for awhile, we should probably try to get some provisions,” Dean finally suggested. “Maybe some more blankets. See if we can find some kind of shoes.”  
  
“Pants?” Sam raised an eyebrow at Dean’s bare legs, oddly pale from lack of exposure to light.  
  
Dean picked at the edge of his silky boxers, deeply regretting not following Sam’s example and bundling up to sleep, even if his clothes were filthy. “They do kind of spring to mind, but from the way it looks outside, without having any idea what the hell is going on-- I don’t think we should go that far. This place seems quiet, but we could be facing anything out there. We don’t even have a freaking tire iron as a weapon...”  
  
Sam nodded in agreement. “The drugstore down the street looked like it was also a mini-mart, and outside looks mostly like it did when we went to sleep, so we can’t have moved that much in time. Maybe even just a few days. We can hit that store first and get what we’re after, then just hang out for awhile.”  
  
“As long as it hasn’t been looted. And I like how you seem to view having only moved a few days into what has to be the future as some kind of comfort. This future sucks.”  
  
“You want to just stay here until we rot, Dean?” Sam demanded.  
  
“No, I’m just saying if this is the future, something has been seriously fucked up. And this might not be a quick trip to the corner deli we’re talking about. We need water, weapons and food. Pretty much in that order. And we need to find a paper and see if that can shed any light on what the hell is going on here.”

~~~~~~~

Outside, it was even worse than it had looked from the protection of their motel room. A casual glance and things were almost normal, if deserted, but on closer inspection, the signs of chaos were everywhere. Doors hung open, windows were smashed. The wind was blowing gently, but sometimes it carried a distinct tinge of carrion. Cars littered the streets, some just stopped as if the drivers had walked away from them in the middle of the road, some crashed into lamp posts or each other. The truly ominous ones had smashed windows and heavy streaks of what neither Winchester could mistake for anything but blood. They grew grimmer and grimmer as they traversed the empty lot and short walk to the corner drugstore and ducked inside to get off the street, both of them instinctively silent.  
  
Inside, the signs of trouble were even more obvious. Displays were knocked over and entire shelves had been swept onto the floor. Uneven, bloody footprints weaved down one aisle and the pharmacy, predictably, had been practically picked clean. The entire store reeked of decaying flesh.  
  
There were no clothes to be found, much to Dean’s sorrow, but in the stationary aisle were a few children’s backpacks that would be useful for carting anything useful they could gather up.  
  
“Pink with flowers or purple with balloons?” Dean asked Sam with great seriousness. Sam grabbed the purple one and slipped past his brother to start loading water bottles that had spilled onto the floor from a refrigerated case. Something had torn the door off.  
  
Dean hopped the pharmacy counter to see if anything worthwhile was left.  
  
“Find anything?” Sam asked, walking over a few minutes later. He had a second backpack over one shoulder that he had dumped a few boxes of granola bars into. Most of the food was gone but a collapsed shelf had protected the boxes from easy reach. It told Sam that the scavenging had occurred before people were truly desperate and that the desperate ones had never hit the drugstore. Which, since the streets were totally deserted now, said ominous things about what had happened to them.  
  
“No.” Dean looked disgusted and tossed aside another empty bottle. “I scored someone’s Vicodin prescription that was kicked under the counter, but from the looks of the place, ‘Jimmy Gibbs Junior’ isn’t going to be coming to pick it up any time soon. What’d you find?”  
  
“I picked up all of the water bottles.” Sam handed Dean one of the heavy plastic backpacks. “And found some granola bars. This place is pretty picked over, though. Nothing for shoes or any kind of clothes.”  
  
Dean nodded, resigned to living in his boxers for the time being. “Enough to hole up for a week or so?”  
  
“If all we are doing is laying around? Yeah, probably.”  
  
“Fantastic. Go find some crayons or something.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“We’re going to hole up in a motel room for a week? I’m not spending all that time staring at my navel.”  
  
“So you want to color?” Sam asked incredulously.  
  
Dean shrugged. “I’m always willing to get in touch with my inner--” he picked up one of the coloring books from the rack, “--what is this? ‘SpongeBob’?”  
  
Sam tossed a plastic-wrapped deck of cards at him that he had fished off the floor. “How about we get in touch with our inner card sharks and catch up on our sleep?”  
  
“C’mon, Sam! Where’s your sense of art? Your sense of--” Dean cut off abruptly as something crashed near the front of the store.  
  
Dean hefted a solid-looking alarm clock and raised an eyebrow at his brother. Sam shrugged, so Dean spoke up. “Hello?”  
  
There was no answer.  
  
Sam motioned for Dean to go up on the far side of the store; Dean nodded and vanished around the corner, leaving Sam to pad as quietly as he could through the ruins of the drugstore towards the front. When he reached the area near the register, he saw a man in a lab coat standing by the counter. His shoulders were hunched and his hair was wildly disarrayed. Loose pens were still rolling across the floor from where he had apparently brushed against the display, knocking it off the counter. Sam approached cautiously. “Sir?”  
  
The man didn’t answer, but gave a kind of shuffling half-step. Before the stranger could turn completely, Sam was already backing up and fumbling for some kind of weapon on the shelf.  
  
Dried blood was splattered --and more ominously, dripped-- down the side of the lab coat, and Sam was pretty sure from the way it was hanging that one of the man’s arms was broken. Before the man could turn to face him, his attention was apparently caught by something on the other side of the store, and Sam turned his own head to see Dean emerge from the aisle. Their gazes met for a fraction of a second before Dean’s eyes widened in alarm and powerful hands with sharp nails wrapped around Sam’s throat and yanked him backwards and off his feet. He went down on top of his assailant. Sam squeaked his brother’s name and tried frantically to rip the fingers from his neck, but to his horror, loose skin shredded under his frantic hands, leaving him grasping at slick bone. He twisted desperately, barely registering the snarls and dull thuds as Dean dealt with an attacker of his own. Teeth pressed against his skin, giving Sam a last rush of panic-fueled strength to try and pull free as lack of oxygen made spots dance in his vision -- then suddenly he was loose and Dean was pulling him to his feet with one hand, the alarm clock he had used to bludgeon their attackers into submission still gripped firmly in the other.  
  
Their hands were slick with unmentionable substances, but Dean’s grip on his brother was sure. He held on until a gasping Sam nodded he was okay and then set to wiping dark spatters of blood from his face with the efficiency of long practice.  
  
“Try hard not to get any of that in your mouth,” Sam finally got out.  
  
“It’s too late for that, Sam. I bludgeoned them with a blunt object, you know? It’s in my mouth, my eyes, my nose... you think this is contagious like that?” Dean was eying the scratches and shallow bite on Sam’s throat.  
  
Sam grimaced and ran tentative fingers over the damage on his neck. “I don’t know, I mean-- there’s just no way to know.”  
  
Dean found a first-aid kit shoved behind the trashcan behind the counter and they were silent as they worked together to patch Sam up and clean the rest of the blood away, both studiously looking at anything but the corpses on the floor.  
  
“So. Zombies?”  
  
Sam nodded wearily. “And not like we’ve ever seen. This is nothing like the people infected with the Croatoan virus, or the normal sort of zombie you have to trap in their casket and stake. These are more like movie zombies. Slow, decaying--”  
  
“--Hungry for flesh. Bashing their skulls in seems fatal,” Dean commented, tucking the kit away and finally forcing himself to go examine the bodies.  
  
“Because they need their brains for something, not because it’s actually killing them. The one that grabbed me was decomposing. Living things don’t do that,” Sam added unnecessarily, still trying to wrap him mind around the magnitude of what must be happening.  
  
Dean just nodded. “If you’re good to move, we need to head back. We don’t know how many of these things are around, but obviously this isn’t a safe place. And if it’s contagious, and the whole city is like this...”  
  
“There could be thousands. Hundreds of thousands, the whole freaking planet,” Sam finished. He stood and gathered up two of the backpacks. Dean shouldered his own and traded his alarm clock for a baseball bat he found behind the counter. He offered a nightstick to Sam.  
  
“Where did you get that?” Sam asked incredulously.  
  
Dean gave a quirky if grim smile and nodded towards the body of Sam’s attacker where it was still lying in the aisle, only the feet in dusty black shoes visible from where they stood. “Your not-so-secret admirer left you a gift. I’m learning a new appreciation for cops.”  
  
Sam shuddered. “Let’s go.”

~~~~~~~

They moved in silence back towards the motel. As far as what was happening, and how widespread... Sam couldn’t decide if it was better to know, or to not know. Usually, he was in favor of knowledge, but in this case, he might be willing to make an exception.  
  
They had picked up several pages of newspapers caught on fences or other debris, but they were only of limited help. Either they didn’t talk about anything out of the ordinary, or they made references to an unusual flu that was moving quickly across the country. But the pages that supposedly had more information were missing. What the papers did confirm for them was that whatever else was different, they were in the same place and roughly the same time as when they had gone to sleep the night before.  
  
Dean scaled a chain-link fence to avoid the open exposure of the street. Sam tossed his backpacks to Dean and climbed over himself. As his feet touched ground, the unmistakable sound of gunfire and a horrendous crash that seemed to almost shake the ground reached them from the alley that stretched to the back of the motel. They both pressed themselves into the shadow of the building.  
  
“Check it out or hide?” Sam whispered. “And what the hell was that noise?!”  
  
Dean looked torn. “Don’t know, but we have no idea how long until we get rescued.” Or if they would be rescued, though neither of them said it aloud. “And whoever has that gun might be the only other human left. At the very least, they should have more information. I think we investigate.”  
  
“At the very least, they have a gun,” Sam hissed back.  
  
Dean grinned. “That too. Guns trump baseball bats. Flip you for it.”  
  
“Dean, that wasn’t--” But his brother was already moving away. Sam growled in irritation and followed.  
  
Behind the building was an overgrown lot. Trees and bushes made it impossible to get a clear look at what was going on. Dean had just straightened up from his crouch to get a better view when there was a thunderous roar and then a car sailed over the scrub and nearly took his head off. He and Sam dropped flat, their father’s long years of training letting them respond instinctively even through the shock. There were some things a person just didn’t expect motor vehicles to do.  
  
The car slammed into the back of the motel and fell to the ground in a jangling crunch of metal and broken masonry not even five feet from Sam’s legs. They were up and moving in seconds, even as the gunfire picked up again. Whatever was happening was going on in the street beyond the lot. Someone let out a scream that was choked off and replaced by a harsh coughing from around the front side of the building the Winchesters were using as cover.  
  
They pressed forward grimly just in time to see a pair of kicking boots vanish into a rundown-looking, faded blue house across the street. The area damage was intense, huge chunks of asphalt ripped up and cars smashed and thrown into houses, but they barely stopped to survey other than noting that whatever had been making the roaring noise --and presumably throwing the cars-- was no longer there. They darted across the street, chasing the boots. From closer to the door, a faint thrashing sound could be heard, along with the rough, hacking cough. The noise was coming from right inside the front entryway.  
  
Dean only paused long enough to give Sam an apologetic glance before stepping squarely into the doorway. He registered that the struggling form on the floor was a woman, but the rest of his attention was absorbed by the six-foot horror that was strangling her with it’s... tongue. At least, that’s what Dean assumed the incredibly long, slimy-looking appendage was that extended from its mouth and wound like a boa constrictor around the woman’s throat and torso was. It was choking off her air and trapping her arms against her sides. The creature looked like it might have been human once, but where the zombies they had encountered in the drugstore had been the classic shambling corpses of a hundred B movie productions, if this thing had started as human, it had become grossly mutated. Massive bulges and folds of loose skin covered its head, neck and upper chest. The skin itself was mottled gray and deep purple. One filmy eye peered malevolently from the ruin of its face, disturbingly aware, as opposed to the mindless hunger the zombies in the store had demonstrated.  
  
Dean didn’t even know where to start with this.  
  
He was startled out of his inaction by the shattering crash of the window behind the monster as a body hurtled through it. The thing jerked, startled, and Dean stepped in quickly and hit it in the head as hard as he could with the baseball bat. It staggered, then Sam was there too, and together they quickly reduced its skull to a ruined pulp. They spun together at the distinctive sound of a gun cocking.  
  
The woman stood behind them now. She had brown hair falling out of a loose ponytail and was dressed in a dull pink track suit top that has clearly seen better days. Her battered jeans were heavily stained and seamed with dozens of tight lines where they had been repaired time and time again. Her neck was the sullen red of truly deep bruises before the color settles out, and she was clearly having some trouble catching her breath. But despite all that, her stance was firm and her hands were steady as she looked them over carefully with sharp eyes. Neither Winchester had any doubt she would pull the trigger at the first false move.  
  
Dean dropped the bat and kept his hands spread, Sam followed suit.  
  
After a few more moments of assessment, the woman slowly lowered her gun.  
  
“Thanks,” she said shortly.  
  
“No charge,” Dean replied in the same level tone. “What the hell is going on around here?”  
  
Her eyes narrowed and fingers tensed on the gun she still held in a cautious grip. “What do you mean ‘what’s going on around here’?”  
  
Sam saw Dean’s brows draw together in irritation and stepped in to try and keep things calm. “He means... look, we aren’t from around here. We, uh, noticed--”  
  
“Shut up, Sam. Whatever is happening, there isn’t a story you can spin she’s going to believe, so how about we keep this simple: we saved your life, you owe us. In payment, how about you treat us like --I don’t know-- we fell from another dimension and need a rundown on whatever the hell is happening in this miserable city?”  
  
For a moment, Sam was sure they were about to get shot, but she just settled her hands on her hips --one still holding the gun-- and glared at them. “You seriously don’t know what’s going on? How the hell can you seriously not know what’s going on?!”  
  
“We don’t have cable on Alpha Centauri,” Dean suggested with a tight smile.  
  
Her look was calculating, and if Dean was aware of what he must look like in his silky, black boxers and Sam’s castoff t-shirt, facing down an armed woman over the battered corpse of something that only belonged on the after-midnight movie special, it didn’t show in his demeanor. After a moment, she just sighed and shook her head, tentatively touching the bruises around her neck and tucking the gun into her waistband.  
  
“I guess that’s not the craziest story I’ve heard. But not here, scavengers will be here soon and we need to move someplace... cleaner.”  
  
Dean nodded. “Lead on.”

~~~~~~~

The woman, who said her name was Zoey and ignored the invitation to supply a surname, led them through several streets and alleys until she found a house that met whatever criteria she was looking for. Then she nonchalantly kicked in the kitchen side door and made a grandly sarcastic invitation to enter. They followed in her wake as she blew through the small home like a whirlwind, making sure the house was empty, riffling the closets, medicine cabinets and anything that looked interesting before settling herself firmly on the kitchen floor with a can of ravioli and a can opener. The can opener she had kissed when she pulled it from a drawer.  
  
“You would think everyone would have had a couple of these laying around,” she commented around a mouthful of food. “But either my family was just weird or they were the first things people packed. This is worth its weight in... well, really nothing anymore. Maybe hydrocodone, some other high end painkillers. God knows we can’t get enough of those.”  
  
She nodded towards the open pantry. “You guys need to get some food while we're here. Make sure you eat something in a can. Cans are too heavy to carry many, they just slow you down. You need to save your weight for clean water. Or ammo.”  
  
Sam vanished into the pantry for a moment and came back out with a couple of selections; he tossed one to Dean and sat on the floor across from their ‘host’. She flipped the can opener to him and picked up her own meal again.  
  
Dean looked less than impressed with the cream of celery soup Sam had given him, but if a childhood under the care of John Winchester had prepared them for anything, it was to eat whatever was offered. He took a few bites, then addressed Zoey again. “So now we’re all cozy, you want to do some of the fill-in?”  
  
Between bites of ravioli, and then a can of creamed corn, Zoey talked about the Green Flu and government screw-ups, the sweeping spread of contagion and what it was like to watch the world die. She told them about mutated zombies, and described horrors that made even the ‘Smoker’ that had nearly killed her seem tame. As for her near death, Zoey shrugged that off with a casual, “It happens.”  
  
“How often does it happen?” Sam asked, when Dean excused himself to water a bush, disturbed by her easy acceptance of a horrible death.  
  
“A lot. Now level with me, how is any of this news to you guys?”  
  
“What if I told you we really did come from an alternate universe?”  
  
Zoey cracked open a third can and slid the can opener into her pack with an admiring look. “People cope in different ways. You guys want to take the fantasy-amnesia route, doesn’t bother me.”  
  
Dean rejoined them, stopping in the doorway to reroll the bottom of jeans looted from one of the bedrooms. They fit okay around the waist, but whoever they belonged to must have been almost as tall as Sam. It made Dean look a little like a kid wearing his big brother’s hand-me-downs, but Sam kept the observation to himself. For the moment. At least Dean had found shoes that fit okay; Sam was stuck with a pair of Velcro sandals with his toes and heels hanging out over the soles.  
  
Dean crouched back down across from Zoey. “You said this thing was insanely contagious. How do you catch it?”  
  
“It’s in the air. Everyone has it, but some of us are carriers and get the questionable pleasure of staying human. Much good it does us.”  
  
The Winchesters exchanged looks. Sam spoke up. “Ah, Zoey. When you say everyone...”  
  
“Yeah, you guys should be grateful you’re only insane and didn’t really come from another dimension or you’d probably be screwed. As it is, to be human and alive at this late date you’re carriers like the rest of us survivors. Congratulations. You get to live in an apocalyptic wasteland and fend off the ravenous corpses of your friends and family until they slowly pick us off. One by one. It’s like winning the lotto, but with zombies instead of cash.”  
  
She didn’t seem terribly troubled by the idea and finished off her food with slow, methodical bites, ignoring the incredible tension across the cold tile of the floor.  
  
“Fuck.”

~~~~~~~

Fifteen minutes later in the living room, things were not so calm, despite Sam’s best efforts.  
  
“I feel fine, Dean. I feel fine, you feel fine, it’s been hours...”  
  
Dean continued to pace the carpet, not looking at all reassured by Sam’s spotty logic. “She said it could take only a few minutes to start feeling it. A few minutes or a few days.”  
  
“We aren’t supposed to be here, Dean! We don’t belong in this place, what possible purpose could there be in dumping us here to die instead of --I don’t know-- zapping us with lightening or something.”  
  
Dean grabbed an ornamental wooden box off a side table and hurled it into a huge mirror on the opposite wall. The explosive racket of shattering glass made Sam cringe. Zoey stuck her head into the room from where she had been going through the cabinets, face furious, while Dean was still staring at the mess with arms crossed tightly over his chest.  
  
“Look, if you guys want to die, that’s your business,” she hissed, “but I’ve put a lot of effort into surviving this mess, so if it’s all the same to you, either keep the noise down or take your suicidal tantrums far away from me.” She waited until Dean gave a short nod of apology and then vanished back into the kitchen.  
  
“Are those mints?”  
  
Sam looked over to where Dean was pointing at the mess of glass shards. Where the box had landed in the glittering rubble, a hint of red was visible spilling from its open top.  
  
“Maybe?”  
  
Dean shrugged and bent to start picking them up. “Calories are calories, and these don’t weigh squat. Go see if you can find a bag in the kitchen or something.”  
  
“Are you okay, Dean?”  
  
“I just need a couple of minutes, Sam.”  
  
When Sam was gone, Dean took a couple of deep breaths and rested his forehead against the wall. It didn’t seem to matter what decisions they made, it was always fire to fire for them. A world-wide zombie plague was a new trick, though. He took a few minutes to work through some vivid images of exactly what he was going to do to who --or what-- ever was responsible for this fuck-up.  
  
Nerves steadier after a moment, he picked up a large shard of glass to reach the striped candy lying behind it, then almost dropped it in shock to see a face in its reflection that wasn’t his own. “Cas?!”  
  
“Dean, you must listen now. There is very little time.”  
  
“What the hell is going on?!”  
  
Castiel’s normally unflappable expression momentarily creased into what Dean would have called consternation from anyone else. “There’s been... an accident.”  
  
“No shit. Sam and I went to bed in a nice, comparatively sane reality, and woke up in _Night Of The Living Dead_. Don’t even try to tell me you guys don’t have something to do with this!”  
  
“Zachariah tried to remove you from your location. I objected. The result was unanticipated.”  
  
“Sam and I found it to be pretty damn unanticipated too! And what the fuck does Zach want with us now?!”  
  
“I believe that he was unimpressed with the results of his last egress into your lives and desires to try again.”  
  
“That’s... fantastic. Fucking wonderful. When do we get out of here so I can kick his angelic ass?”  
  
“That would be unadvisable. And extremely difficult.”  
  
“ _Cas_  -- getting out?!” Dean hissed angrily.  
  
“As soon as I can locate you and your brother, I will attempt to pull you back into your proper reality. Until then, you must do what you can to survive. Retrieving your living selves is complicated enough, if you die there, things will be... difficult. Or impossible.”  
  
“If we’re dead,” Dean growled, “we won’t care if you bail us out or not. And what the hell do you mean ‘as soon as I can locate you’? We’re talking now!”  
  
“You will,” Castiel replied cryptically. “And this communication is traveling through layers and layers of realities. Millions of minute variations in which you are the merest of discordant ripples.”  
  
“Why don’t you look for the one where the planet is overrun by zombies?!”  
  
“I was referring to the ones where the planet is overrun by as you say ‘zombies’.”  
  
Dean stared at him. “Millions?”  
  
“As I said.”  
  
“Dean, who are you talking to?”  
  
Zoey’s voice startled him into turning his head, and when he glanced back at the mirror shard, it showed only his own reflection. Dean swore under his breath and stood to face her. She looked deeply suspicious and it didn’t escape his attention that the hand on her hip was very close to her gun. Again. But he couldn’t really blame her; he was almost a total stranger with a ludicrous story, who she found kneeling on the ground, apparently talking to himself. In the kill-or-be-killed survival scenario that was this reality, unstable humans were probably as great a threat as the undead. He held out empty hands and tried to look as harmless as possible.  
  
“Hey, Zoey. I thought Sam was back.”  
  
She looked only marginally mollified, but then Sam showed up in the doorway behind her. “Are we moving?”  
  
“Moving where?” Dean raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Zoey is going to take us to meet her crew.”  
  
Zoey didn’t look especially happy about that.  
  
“If you have a crew, why the hell were you out there alone on the street?”  
  
“We got separated. Someone startled a Witch, so I ducked out a window; everyone else took the fire escape. Then I was over here and alone; there was a Tank --one of those things that threw the car at you guys-- but I managed to hide from it and that’s when the Smoker showed up. Now I’m going back. You guys seem clueless, but leaving you here to die doesn’t sit right.”  
  
“You mean you want someone watching your back in case another one of those tongue-things get a shot at you.”  
  
Zoey shrugged, unapologetic. “You don’t have to come.”  
  
“Oh no, we’re definitely tagging along.” Dean gave her his most winning smile, which only made her roll her eyes.  
  
Sam had a different question. “What’s a Witch?”

~~~~~~~

The route Zoey led them on was strange and unpredictable. They climbed in and out of buildings and houses, down alleys and up fire escapes. Miles of urban jungle. People had always been predators, but not usually as upfront about it as the zombies were now in their desperate search for living flesh. But Zoey seemed to be comfortable with her route, or maybe after having lived this way for months her instincts were just that sharpened, and while they saw a lot of zombies from windows or at a distance, they came across very few. And those few were easily, and quietly, dispatched.  
  
Dean filled Sam in on what Cas said in furtive whispers as they trailed close in Zoey’s wake. It didn’t make the younger Winchester much happier than it had made Dean, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it but try and hang on.  
  
“Look,” Dean finally concluded, “if Zoey and her people can survive in this with no training, we can too. It’s gonna suck, but eventually Cas will find us and everything will be fine.”  
  
Sam didn’t answer, but he was obviously thinking unhappy thoughts he didn’t seem to want to share. Dean didn’t push him, he had enough of his own unhappy thoughts to dwell on and Sam was entitled to his brooding. He caught up with Zoey and let his brother be.  
  
Eventually she led them into a culvert and from there through a broken pipe into a damp sewer.  
  
“I knew we were going to end up back in a sewer,” Dean grumbled.  
  
“Back?” Zoey asked, shining her flashlight on him.  
  
“Job hazard.” Sam shielded his eyes. In the half day they had been acquainted, Dean had managed to earnestly assure Zoey they were everything from cheerleaders to aliens from the planet Zorg. She’d stopped asking hours ago and mentioning their ‘job’ was guaranteed to kill her curiosity. “Are we close?”  
  
She nodded and turned a corner, then shone the light on a heavy metal door painted a dull red.  
  
“Safe room,” she explained, tapping a distinct pattern on the metal. “When people trying to escape from the plague found secure places to sleep and hide, it was the custom to try and paint the doors red so that those coming after them would know they were safe.”  
  
“Passing through to where?”  
  
She shrugged. “Anywhere that wasn’t where they were coming from. Initially, the military set up the first safe rooms and gave directions to evac centers. But the disease kept spreading and eventually it was obvious there were no safe places really. As far as I know, the only people still human are carriers. There may still be a few military hold-outs using filtered air and containment protocols, but it only takes one little slip and then... well, you know.”  
  
The door opened silently on well-greased hinges and a wary-looking man in a filthy white suit eyed them suspiciously. “Who the hell are you guys?”  
  
“They’re with me, Nick.” Zoey pushed the door open and Nick reluctantly stepped back. “They saved my life after you guys left me to die.” She didn’t sound bitter about it, just matter-of-fact.  
  
“There was a Witch,” Nick said, with only the thinnest tone of apology.  
  
“I saw that, which is why I went out a window, instead of up the obvious path. How far did she chase you guys? I brought food.”  
  
The odd and seemingly disjointed subjects didn’t faze Nick and he snorted and moved further back so they could enter. Sam and Dean followed Zoey into the surprisingly spacious one-room chamber beyond the door -- and straight into a pulled gun.  
  
“Who the hell are these guys?!”  
  
“Chill out, Francis, they’re with me. They saved my life and I brought them here so they could get a safe night’s sleep.”  
  
The gun didn’t lower and the heavily muscled man in the sleeveless denim jacket was too far out of reach to make taking it away feasible.  
  
“How do you know they aren’t infected?” Francis demanded to know.  
  
From his position seated on a rough-finished table shoved against a wall, a hefty-looking black man in a high school polo shirt gave the Winchesters an appraising look, then went back to cleaning his pistol. “Of course they’re infected, Francis. We’re all infected. But they won’t be flesh-eaters for the same reason we won’t. They’re just carriers. Otherwise, they’d be out there with all the rest.”  
  
Nick took Zoey’s bag and settled down against the wall to rummage through it. “It doesn’t matter, anyways; if they do turn, it’s not like we don’t know how to handle that.” He gave a pointed look to Dean’s rolled up jeans. “And they don’t really look like criminal masterminds.”  
  
“Hey,” Dean snapped back. “Who wore the white suit to the zombie freaking apocalypse?”  
  
“At least my momma didn’t dress me like this.”  
  
“I’m Coach,” the man on the table offered into the tension before hostilities could really break out.  
  
Sam turned, grateful for a distraction, and held out a hand. “I’m Sam, that’s my brother Dean.”  
  
Coach shook the offered hand with an expression of tolerant amusement, like shaking hands was a bemusing novelty. “Where’d you boys come from?”  
  
“Mars,” Dean growled.  
  
Zoey rolled her eyes. “It’s a great mystery. I wouldn’t ask anymore unless you want to hear about the mother ship. The rest not back yet?”  
  
The room fell into a tense silence, but not the temperamental one of Dean and Nick’s clash, this one was more... grim.  
  
“Not yet,” Francis finally offered.  
  
“Too late to do anything about it tonight,” Nick added.  
  
“Yeah. Let’s just eat and try and get some sleep.” Zoey sighed. “Tomorrow we can see what can be done.”  
  
“What’s going on?” Sam asked, when the heavy silence returned.  
  
“Couple of people on a supply run aren’t back yet and the sun’s going down. You need me to draw you a map, Einstein?” Francis grumbled.  
  
No one in the room would meet anyone else’s gaze. Sam glanced over at Dean, but Dean shook his head and slid down the wall. Zoey handed him and Sam a couple of industrial grey blankets and then took her own over to an empty corner. There was some grumbling and some quiet conversation, but no one really seemed in the mood to talk and everyone slowly started getting ready for bed.  
  
“I hate strangers,” Francis grumbled awhile later as the last flashlight clicked off. Zoey said something to him in a low voice, tone even and firm, but the distinction of her words was lost in the impenetrable darkness of the safe room.  
  
It was a very long time before Dean or Sam slept.

 

 

** PART II **

  
The first hint of movement in the room jolted the Winchesters awake. The night had been an uncomfortable affair. It wasn’t too cold, and it was certainly dark and quiet enough, but the constant damp reek of the place and the occasional distant moaning howl or shriek made it impossible to forget the circumstances. They split the can of Spaghetti O’s tossed their way without complaint and Sam handed out granola bars as a gesture of goodwill. No one seemed very talkative still, thoughts obviously preoccupied. Maybe on their missing companions. Sam and Dean were surprised when they packed up everything in the room that was portable, clearly planning to move out.  
  
“I thought this was some kind of way station for people traveling. ‘Leave a penny, take a penny’ type stuff? You guys just seem to be in the ‘take’ frame of mind,” Dean observed.  
  
Coach yawned in Dean’s direction. “Not much traffic anymore, and not a lot of resources either. We used to leave ammo and food stock, but you boys are the first humans we’ve tripped over in... more than two months now, I guess. Can’t afford to throw away supplies when no one’s coming for them.”  
  
Sam frowned. “Even as much of a panic as people must have been in, you said the virus spread across the county in a matter of weeks and people turn in a matter of hours or days?”  
  
“Or minutes,” Francis muttered, giving them another suspicious look. Dean had the impression he was just waiting for one of them to lunge for his neck.  
  
“Or minutes,” Sam agreed, “but if that was the case, I would think there would be plenty of supplies around. People couldn’t have consumed everything that fast, and if there are only a handful of humans still alive...”  
  
“There are still lots of supplies,” Zoey replied, “but people took them and hid them away when they still thought they had a chance. What’s hidden the best is what we need the most: good water, medicine, weapons.”  
  
“Food that’s light and portable,” Nick grimaced, hefting the bag Zoey had stocked with canned goods the day before. “And what rock have you guys been under that this is news?”  
  
“We were cryogenically frozen to preserve our awesome genes, but we thawed out when the power cut off and now we’re playing catch-up,” Dean explained impatiently.  
  
Nick, Coach and Francis all blinked. Zoey rolled her eyes. “They’re crazy, but harmless. And stop whining, Nick. I carried that thing at least five miles yesterday and I didn’t see you turning your nose up at the contents.”  
  
“But you’re a girl,” Nick gave her a winning smile, deciding to ignore Dean’s explanation, “it’s your job to provide for the menfolk.”  
  
“Make sure you mention that to Rochelle when we run into her again,” Coach suggested, stuffing a blanket into the top of his own pack. “I’m sure she’ll be interested in your perspective.”  
  
Nick snorted his opinion of that.  
  
“I wouldn’t mention it,” Francis said seriously, as if the suggestion had been a real one, from where he was standing in the open door shining his light down the tunnels to check for company. “She kneed me in the balls for asking her how long she thought we should wait before we started working on the population problem.”  
  
“Francis!” Zoey gasped, appalled.  
  
“What?! Louis and Nick started it, I was just trying to include her in the conversation. You know, team-building and that crap you keep bitching about.”  
  
“Yeah,” Nick drawled, “but we were having a theoretical discussion on the current state of things, you implied she needed to start popping out babies and you’d be happy to give her a hand.”  
  
“It doesn’t sound like it was a hand he wanted to give her,” Dean said dryly.  
  
“You shut up!” Francis snarled.  
  
Coach stood up. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. There’s not going to be any rebuilding, and there certainly won’t be babies.”  
  
“Why not?” Francis asked, puzzled.  
  
“They’ll get sick,” Zoey told him with gentle exasperation. “Some might not, but most will. And can you imagine trying to run from the horde with a baby? It wouldn’t be right, Francis.”  
  
He rubbed at the back of his head and looked a little sheepish. “Yeah, all right. It was just talk, though; I didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t have to hit me.”  
  
“She did,” Nick grinned. “She really, really did.”  
  
Francis growled wordlessly but didn’t comment.  
  
They finished packing up the safe room and then Dean and Sam followed as their new allies led them carefully about half a mile away and up a good-sized hill. From there, they climbed a few descended levels of fire escape until they reached the roof of a short office building that, despite its squatness, gave them a good vantage over the city.  
  
“Okay, guys,” Dean said, when they had reached the roof, “we’ve played along -- now what the hell are we doing here?”  
  
Coach pressed a pair of binoculars to Dean’s chest and motioned out towards a low, flat-looking building a mile or two in the distance. Dean gave it a look and then a low whistle before handing the binoculars off to Sam.  
  
“Why are they all gathered around it like that?”  
  
Francis spit in disgust. “Because someone fucked up. Probably Ellis. Damn clumsy hayseed probably tripped over a fire alarm or something.”  
  
“I didn’t notice you having any concerns about his coordination when he shot that Hunter off your ass last week,” Nick snapped.  
  
“Guys.” Zoey had the weary tone of someone who had heard the same general argument a few too many times. “It doesn’t matter who did what, what matters is what we do now.”  
  
“We leave their asses behind and get the hell out of dodge!”  
  
Zoey glared at Francis. “Anyone else have an idea?”  
  
“I don’t know why you always pick on me, “ Francis grumbled. “Everyone is thinking it, I’m just saying it out loud.”  
  
“There’s a reason you’re the only one saying it out loud,” Coach rumbled. “And I’m not willing to cut them loose without at least getting a closer look. Most of the zombies are clustered up around the west end. If we cut through the downtown area and come up near the parking garage, we should be able to avoid the horde completely.”  
  
Nick grimaced.  
  
“Downtown sounds like Tanks to me,” he said reluctantly.  
  
“How many cigarettes do you have left, Nick?” Zoey asked casually.  
  
“Most of a carton, why? I’m not sharing, so if you’re thinking of picking it up, you can go scavenge your own smokes. These are my special imported one-of-a-kind babies. I was damn lucky to find the first box, and it will be a cold day somewhere hotter than Hell before I find another one.”  
  
“You have that carton with you?” she asked pleasantly.  
  
“Ran out of room; I stuck it in Ellis’s...” Nick’s voice trailed off with an expression of dawning horror. He started swearing with enough creativity to widen even Dean’s eyes.  
  
“Guess that means we’re going in,” Coach said with satisfaction.  
  
“They went after guns and ammo you said?” Dean asked.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Good. I’m feeling the need to pick up something more aggressive than a bat.”  
  
Sam just sneezed.

~~~~~~~

To approach the mall from the safer side took two days of backtracking and circling through the downtown area of the city.  
  
It was a nightmare journey for Sam and Dean, and they were deeply disquieted by how commonplace their companions seemed to find everything. The everyday backdrop to the shambling monsters that had replaced the human population, the sheer horror of the situation -- no matter how much the Winchesters prided themselves on being able to handle anything life, or death, threw at them, they hadn’t had enough time to really swallow the magnitude of this world, and were finding it hard to choke down even in small chunks.  
  
The relentless pace and constant alertness was exhausting, and an unfortunate introduction to a Hunter had left Dean with deep and aching wounds across his chest. But what had him really concerned was Sam. What had started as a few sneezes had gradually progressed to a cough and some trouble breathing. Dean was pretty sure his brother was running a fever too, but any time he tried to check, Sam glared and shoved him away. After two days of steadily worsening conditions, Sam was lagging behind the group. The wary looks and narrowed eyes of their new companions were all the answers Dean needed to the questions he was terrified to ask.  
  
“Sam.”  
  
Sam looked up from where he had collapsed on a windowsill. His eyes were red-rimmed and his skin was chalky under the flush from the eight flights of stairs they had just climbed. He met Dean’s eyes for only the briefest of moments before looking down again. Dean could hear the wheeze of his breathing from three feet away and his own chest was tight as he dropped down to sit beside his brother.  
  
“How are you holding up?”  
  
Sam smiled, and it was genuine if exhausted. “I’m kind of hoping Cas comes through for us. Soon.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean swallowed  
  
“How are you doing?” Sam’s voice was even, but Dean knew what he was really asking.  
  
“I’m okay, Sam. I feel... fine.”  
  
Sam let his body slump a little so he was leaning against Dean. Through the fabric of their shirts, Dean could feel the unhealthy heat of Sam’s skin. Silence hung between them. Up the hallway, the others were talking quietly and taking stock of their ammunition. The mall was within two blocks now, and once they started moving, there was unlikely to be another good chance to take a break until they had either rescued their comrades or abandoned the effort entirely.  
  
Sam glanced up the hallway. “Man, and I thought our lives sucked.”  
  
Dean turned his head to follow Sam’s gaze and his chin brushed his brother’s hair. They were filthy, and tired, Sam was sick, and every time he thought they had hit rock bottom, somehow things got worse, but in that split second, life was... okay.  
  
Then Francis stood up and pointed a gun in their direction and it was business as usual.  
  
“What the fuck?” Dean snarled, standing up in front of Sam protectively.  
  
“He’s already dead! And I don’t plan to be the one standing in front of him when he decides to take a bite. If you want to be that person, then why don’t the two of you crawl on back to wherever you came from and have a nice, short life together!”  
  
“He just has a cold, Francis,” Coach said in a reasonable voice, stepping up beside him. “If he was sick like that, he would have turned weeks ago. Just like everyone else. All of us still human are going to stay that way until we drop dead, and then we won’t be standing back up. Leave the poor man alone.”  
  
“That ain’t no cold and you damn well know it!”  
  
“Then we can shoot him once he turns, Francis!” Zoey stepped around him to stand next to Dean, arms crossed and frowning.  
  
Francis snorted. “Says you. Who was it that shot our helicopter pilot -- while he was still flying the damn thing?”  
  
Zoey growled and Nick joined them. “He wasn’t flying us anywhere once he died.”  
  
“No shit,” Francis snorted.  
  
“Look,” Nick continued, “if Sam turns into a zombie, we can have a race to see who shoots him first, but until then he’s not hurting anything by tagging along.”  
  
“He’s slowing us down!”  
  
“How about if I take this bat to your kneecap?” Dean snarled. “You think maybe then you might have some trouble keeping up yourself?”  
  
Francis opened his mouth to spit something back, but Coach caught his eyes with a meaningful look and Francis shoved the gun back into his belt and spat onto the dull brown of the industrial carpeting.  
  
“Fine then. But I warned you all, and he better not walk anywhere near me. Let’s get moving. I fucking hate waiting.” He stalked off, muttering.  
  
Zoey hung back while the other two hurried to catch up with Francis. Dean was still bristling as he hauled Sam to his feet and waited while his brother made another attempt to cough up his lungs, the noise muffled as best he could in the wadded fabric of a flannel Coach had found for him scavenging a house the day before. Sam seemed barely aware of how close he had come to death, it was taking everything he had just to keep going.  
  
“Don’t mind Francis,” Zoey suggested quietly. “He’s scared. It’s amazing how we can adapt, but you get so used to one horror, and then you guys bring back old fears.”  
  
“What fear are we bringing back that I’m supposed to let that go?!” Dean demanded.  
  
Zoey gave a meaningful look to where Sam was finally standing upright again, trying to breathe shallowly enough to not set off another coughing fit.  
  
“We’re supposed to be carriers. Safe from turning into one of... them. That’s what the scientists insisted when they had us locked up like dogs in a kennel. Whatever else we have to be afraid of, that wasn’t supposed to be on the table anymore. So Sam getting sick, it makes us think that maybe we aren’t as safe as we thought we were.”  
  
“You won’t get it,” Sam wheezed out.  
  
“You did,” Zoey shot back.  
  
And there it was, laid flat.  
  
Dean set his jaw and glared at the wall, swallowing down the desire to scream. They weren’t even supposed to be there. They sure as hell weren’t supposed to be catching the mother of all zombie plagues. He was going fucking slaughter Zachariah when next their paths crossed.  
  
Sam shook his head but didn’t argue with her. Dean counted to ten very slowly and then drew a deep breath. “We need to catch up.”  
  
Zoey gave him a measuring look and he met her gaze steadily. He had no doubt she could see the rage and frustration he was barely keeping leashed, but she said nothing.  
  
“What did you mean about being in a kennel, and the scientists?” Sam rasped.  
  
“Not all monsters eat flesh,” she said simply, then started down the hall.

~~~~~~~

“Someone set off the fucking fire alarm.” Nick stated the obvious in a voice of total disgust.  
  
Francis grunted. “Told ya.”  
  
“Yeah, Francis. You’re a real prophet of disaster.” Coach shook his head and leaned against a wall. “Anyone want to suggest a plan of action?”  
  
Reaching the mall from the office building had taken less than an hour once they started moving again. They had encountered few zombies and none of the special infected, but instead of having a relaxing effect on the group, Dean noted that it seemed to only make them more paranoid and suspicious. Something worth emulating.  
  
“Maybe they are all on the other side with the regular zombies,” Dean suggested.  
  
“And maybe that’s where your brain is too,” Nick hissed back.  
  
They made their way through the parking garage until they found a plain metal door that was unlocked, but from ten feet away, it was already obvious what was keeping the rapturous attention of the local zombie population.  
  
“Shouldn’t that thing have run out of juice by now?” Sam muttered.  
  
“Emergency generators.” Coach sighed. “This city is full of all sorts of generators the likes of which you wouldn’t have even imagined before. And batteries, and who knows what else is powering some of this junk now. I can tell you no one wasted any emergency equipment on keeping any burger stands going.”  
  
“Because he’s looked,” Nick drawled.  
  
“Everywhere,” Zoey added.  
  
Coach’s expression was wounded. “You people claiming you would turn your nose up at a fine piece of seared meat with a thick, fresh bun and all the trimmings?”  
  
“No,” Nick retorted, crouching and peering cautiously around a corner. “Only that if you’re going to keep your eyes peeled for something everywhere we go, clean water and first aid are higher on the priority list.”  
  
“Your priority list. Aren’t you here for cigare--” Coach’s next words were cut off by a massive, fast-moving blur that slammed into him hard enough to rip him off his feet and carried him through the balcony railing and down into the shadows of the floor below.  
  
“What the fuck was that!?”  
  
“Charger,” Nick said tensely. Zoey was already running for the escalator. Francis didn’t bother, hopping down through the break in the railing onto the flat surface of a kiosk below and firing a few rounds into something only he could see.  
  
“Let’s go.” Nick waited with thrumming impatience while Dean got Sam back up. “We may as well see what the damage is. Those gunshots have told everything in the area where we are, so it’s definitely time to move.”  
  
Sam wasn’t up to leaping off ledges and Dean wouldn’t leave him, so the two of them took the stairs and were the last to reach the group on the lower level. By that time, Nick and Francis were winding a wide bandage around Coach’s chest while Zoey kept a wary watch on the heavy shadows of the mall interior. Other than the flashing red lights tied into the alarm system, the only light in the mall came from regular skylights set into the ceiling. The reek of death was strong, a constant reminder that no matter how peaceful it seemed, monsters walked here still. As if what had just happened to Coach wasn’t reminder enough.  
  
“I need to breathe,” he grumbled, as Nick tied the bandage off tightly.  
  
“What you need to do is try not to get hit in the chest for awhile. Unless you like bone shards digging into your lungs.”  
  
“What happened?” Sam asked, slumping down onto the edge of the same planter Coach was seated on.  
  
“Got charged.” Coach shrugged a little, testing the pull of the bandage around his ribcage.  
  
Dean frowned. “I would have thought hitting the ground that hard would have done more than crack a few ribs. Death springs to mind.”  
  
“I’m not sure they’re just cracked,” Coach grimaced, touching his side gingerly, “but I got off lucky this time. Damn thing landed on its feet, then dragged me over here to slam me into the ground a few times. Guess this padding turned out to be good for something after all.” He smiled at Dean, but even in the dim light, Dean could see that it didn’t reach his eyes.  
  
Not that that was surprising. They bantered and acted like they had some place to go, some reason to keep fighting, but everyone he and Sam had met since getting tossed into this reality had shadows in their eyes that would only grow deeper every day until they died. And that day in all likelihood was not far off, with little hope of any recourse.  
  
He offered Coach a solemn salute.  
  
“Let’s keep moving,” Zoey insisted in a low voice. “It’s too quiet around here.”  
  
“Where’s the gun shop?”  
  
“Upstairs, on the other side.”  
  
“Naturally,” Dean sighed.

~~~~~~~

They were stopped in an arboretum area and the survivors were clustered together, having some kind of frantic, whispered argument. Dean wasn’t interested. Even he knew what the occasional roars and pounding thuds coming from up ahead meant. A Tank was in the mall ahead, and the only sane thing to do was run.  
  
But they weren’t running. Yet.  
  
“Sam, you need to hold it together for a little while. Then we’ll get you someplace safe where you can rest and--”  
  
“I don’t need a safe place now, Dean. We both know... We know.”  
  
“Fuck you, Sam! You aren’t supposed to be able to get this crap.”  
  
“I don’t think immunity to demonic plagues and immunity to zombie plagues are the same thing. How are you feeling?”  
  
“Shitty,” Dean snapped. “Thanks for asking.”  
  
Sam frowned at him and Dean scowled at his boots. Sam already looked like he had more than one foot in the grave. Dean entertained some violent thoughts about scientists and angels, and spared a few unlovely ones for Castiel, who needed to hurry his slow angelic ass up already and bail them the fuck out before Sam decided to try the other white meat.  
  
Nick waved them over.  
  
“You go ahead.”  
  
“Sam, get the fuck up.”  
  
Sam shook his head. “You go,” he insisted. “I’ll still be here when you’re done.”  
  
Dean glared at the top of his bowed head as if he could will him into standing, but after a moment, he stormed over alone to find out what the plan was.

~~~~~~~

“Why are we doing this again?” Dean hissed, twenty minutes later. “We haven’t seen any signs of the others.”  
  
“Two reasons,” Nick breathed, not taking his eyes off the gigantic, misshapen zombie rampaging down the opposite side of the walkway from where they were crouched behind a counter. “One, we need guns, and the best source of those is in that store over there, and two, we need ammo, and the best supply is in that store over there.”  
  
“What about the rest of your team?”  
  
Nick’s expression darkened at the reminder. “Oh yeah, and my cigarettes. We definitely need those too. And Zoey also has some deranged attachment to Ellis, Louis and Rochelle and wants to see if they’re still kicking around somewhere.”  
  
“Francis seems to think you might have some interest in Ellis’ continued survival too,” Dean needled, having picked up that tidbit from Francis’ anything-but-subtle digs.  
  
“Are you really fucking your brother? You guys seem awfully close,” was Nick’s casual reply.  
  
Dean scowled and shut up.  
  
“Watch this.” Nick pointed over to where Francis was creeping around a corner. The Tank turned his back and Francis flung a piece of dislodged masonry over the rail so that it skittered across the floor into the darkness of a lower-level corridor. The Tank bellowed in outrage and turned all of its attention towards the sound, leaped down to the lower floor with a ground-shattering thud, then crammed its massive bulk into the hallway, chasing the echoes of the rock’s landing. The instant it was out of sight, Nick grabbed Dean’s arm and the two of them hurried to the gun store.  
  
Once in the store, Dean swore sulfurously under his breath; it took only the briefest of glances to know there were no guns left to be found. There was ammunition, but what hadn’t been looted was scattered in handfuls across the floor. Nick didn’t waste his breath; he dropped to his knees and began scooping handfuls of it into his bag. Dean followed suit, figuring there would be more time for sorting later, but he was interrupted before he had covered even the bottom of the bag by a low whistle. Both he and Nick jerked their heads up. Across the arcade, a security door recessed into the wall the Tank had been battering had been shoved open and someone was waving a frantic arm to catch attention.  
  
Dean realized immediately who it must be, but before he could ask Nick what he wanted to do, a dull, moaning sound reached his ears from back the way they had come. Nick grabbed his arm again. “They picked up our scent and followed us in.”  
  
“So how are we going to get out?!”  
  
Nick flashed him a grim smile. “Better hope they have pipe bombs in that safe room.”  
  
“Pipe bom--”  
  
Nick almost ripped his arm out of the socket hauling him to his feet before Dean could pursue the question. They both darted across the exposed walkway towards the door.  
  
From just outside the room, Dean could see that it had been painted red at some time, but under the Tank’s relentless assault, almost all of the color had been beaten off. Nick was dragged into a quick hug by a petite black woman while Dean took a quick survey of the room. One man was already loading bullets from Nick’s bag into a spent clip and the other was looking at Dean with wide-eyed surprise. Dean flinched as a bench flew up from the shadows below and slammed into the wall only feet from his head. He spun only to be shoved into the room by the breathless arrival of Francis and Zoey, who crowded in behind him and pulled the door shut, slamming the heavy bar lock home.  
  
“Where’s Sam?!” Dean yelled.  
  
“Dean--” Zoey began.  
  
Dean felt the world go bright and staticky around him. “He didn’t...”  
  
“He’s… Dean… we’ve all seen it before, so many times. He doesn’t have any time left, and he can’t run. There are zombies pouring in behind us, and the Tank--”  
  
“He told us to leave him,” Francis cut in bluntly. “Which was the right call; he’s walking carrion. Better luck in the next life.”  
  
Dean slammed him up against the wall before anyone could stop him. “You left him out there!”  
  
“Dean--”  
  
Dean shoved Francis aside and wrenched the door lock out of place.  
  
“I don’t know who you are, man, but if you go, you’re gone. We won’t open that door again as long as the Tank is out there. We’ve been pinned down three days now, it has to get bored soon. But probably not soon enough for us to bail your ass out of trouble, got it?”  
  
Dean nodded in grim understanding at the man who must be Louis from the descriptions he’d been given during the two-day hike to reach the mall.  
  
Zoey grabbed his arm. “Dean--” Whatever was in his eyes must have told her pleading was pointless and she finished with, “I hope you guys get... back to wherever you came from.”  
  
Dean flashed her a hard smile and vanished back into the deadly shadows of the mall.

~~~~~~~

The reek of death was even stronger than it had been before, almost gag-worthy in its intensity, and Dean could only imagine the size of the horde that must be approaching to turn the air ahead of them so rancid. The Tank could be heard snuffling around downstairs like it was sniffing for something.  
  
There was only one place on the lower level that offered any kind of shelter and Dean took a page from Francis’ book and hopped the railing to land on the low, flat roof of a kiosk. Not even the thud he made distracted the Tank that was prowling in the shadows. The rumbling growl turned into a triumphant roar just as Dean touched tile with his booted feet. He gripped his bat tightly and ran towards it, desperate to reach its prey first, though what he would do when he got there was still unformed in his mind. Die, he supposed. And then, if there was any justice in the world at all, he and his bat and his brother would get to spend a few minutes in Heaven in a small room with the fucking angel that had sent them to this hell.  
  
Or maybe Zachariah could spend some time in a small room with the Tank.  
  
That would be okay too.  
  
A tree was knocked clean out of the planter by one swing of the Tank’s fist, roots and all, and Dean threw himself aside to escape it. From his new vantage, he could see Sam huddled against a vending machine, knees tucked to his chest and arms wrapped around them. Dean crawled over to kneel beside him and grabbed his shoulder.  
  
“Sam!”  
  
Sam slumped over bonelessly onto the floor at the movement. His eyes were shut and his breathing rapid. Sweat stood out on his skin, but it was icy to Dean’s touch. From the corner of his eye, he could see the Tank lift the entire tree and turn in their direction. Dean pulled Sam half onto his lap and bent over him, grabbing one of his hands. He couldn’t escape the Tank while carrying Sam, and possibly not at all. If they were going to die in this shithole reality, they could damn well do it together.  
  
“Hang on, Sammy,” he whispered into dark, sweaty hair, just in case there was some part of Sam that could still hear him.  
  
He felt the whoosh of air as the Tank lifted the tree above them and drew what he expected to be his last breath. Sam’s fingers tightened around his own just as the Tank’s scream of triumph threatened to shatter his eardrums and...  
  
...the scream changed in pitch. Higher and thinner, and the low moaning of the approaching zombies changed to the rustle and murmur of a restless crowd. The light seemed different too. Sam’s fingers around his own tightened like a vice and then he was pushing against Dean, struggling to sit up. Dean’s eyes flew open and he looked up to meet the shocked gazes of people standing in a loose circle around them.  
  
Normal people, human people.  
  
He glanced up to where the battered safe room door had been and saw that now it was just a plain metal door set between two shop fronts underneath a cheerful banner advertising discount shoes.  
  
The screaming had stopped, but while the people in front still looked stunned --no doubt unused to people appearing out of thin air-- someone who had missed the suddenness of their appearance and was just now getting an eyeful started giggling.  
  
Dean looked wildly around until his eyes locked on Sam’s own confused but clear --thank god-- gaze, and then gave him a good look-over. Sam looked... fine. He was wearing his jeans and t-shirt, unbloodied and intact, and his bare feet looked oddly pale in the brightness of the mall lights. Dean’s feet were bare too; he was wearing the t-shirt Sam had given him what seemed like forever ago, and the silky black boxers he was really starting to hate.  
  
“Dean,” Sam hissed, “we have to get out of here.”  
  
Dean heartily agreed. He hadn’t spent most of a week struggling to survive in a zombie-infested apocalypse to cool his heels answering awkward questions from a mall cop. The crowd moved out of their way as they made their escape.  
  
Fishing bus fare out of the fountains near the bus stop in his underwear was not the most dignified thing Dean had ever done, and the glare he had given the bus driver daring him to comment on their appearance might have been a little overkill. But the relief he felt when they finally got off at their stop and approached their motel room door was immense. A newspaper left on the bus let them know that whatever had happened, whatever they had been through, here in their own world it was the morning after they had fallen asleep. It was impossible not to look at the perfect normality of the world through the bus window and not wonder how the people left behind with the starving dead of their entire world were faring.  
  
The motel room door was locked and their keys were inside, but it only took a quick look around and then a hard wrench of the handle to get them in.  
  
Once there, Dean ignored everything in favor of reaching under his pillow to retrieve his gun. He kissed it with as much emotion as he had ever kissed a woman and didn’t take his eyes off of it as he dragged his filthy clothes from a week ago on without a thought, then tucked the gun into his belt where he could feel it’s reassuring weight. Already, the traumas of the week seemed to be fading like a horrible nightmare, and Dean was torn between letting it go gratefully or clinging to memories he had earned.  
  
Every trace of the agony of the week had vanished like fever dreams. Sam didn’t have so much as a sniffle, and even the deep lacerations the Hunter had left across Dean’s chest existed only in his memory.  
  
“Grab your crap; we’re leaving.”  
  
Sam groaned and didn’t even raise his head from the mattress where he had slumped as soon as they had secured the door behind them. “Dean...”  
  
Dean tossed Sam’s duffle bag onto his chest and rattled his car keys. “I’m not kidding, Sam. I’m not spending five more minutes in this city. We’re leaving. You can sleep in the car.”  
  
“You need sleep too.”  
  
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Dean snapped. Their eyes locked for a second; Sam looked away first and packed his things without further protest. Dean jogged down to turn in the key.  
  
They met back up at the Impala and stowed their stuff in the trunk. Dean turned the key in the door just as the wind blew an empty water bottle across the parking lot. They both tracked its movements, the familiar label the same as the bottles they had recovered from the drugstore, worlds and time away from the midday sunlight shining down on the traffic in the street.  
  
“Are we going to talk about this, Dean?”  
  
“There isn’t anything to talk about, Sam. As far as anything here is concerned, it was a bad fucking dream.”  
  
“And what if that’s our future,” Sam hissed. “What if--”  
  
“It isn’t,” Dean cut him off flatly. “You saw the papers; by now, they were already months into it. It isn’t happening here; it won’t.”  
  
“You don’t know that! It could start next week!”  
  
“Well, if it does, you won’t have to worry about it for long now, will you?”  
  
Memories of his brother’s labored breath and the unnatural heat of his skin as the plague killed him struck Dean like a blow and he immediately regretted his words. Sam set his jaw and turned away.  
  
Dean threw the Impala into gear and pulled onto the Interstate, determined to put as many miles behind them as possible before his body gave him no choice but to stop.  
  
“It won’t happen here, Sam.”  
  
“You don’t know that.” Sam’s voice was low and uneven.  
  
“I do know that.” Dean’s smile was sharp and his eyes were fierce. “And do you know why? Because in the grand scheme of things, with angels and demons and God and the devil himself -- you and I just aren’t that lucky.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I almost forgot these! Many, many, overwhelming thanks to elusive_life_77, my co-mod on this most interesting adventure and general around rockin' person. She's also my teammate in gameplay and doesn't even shoot me for setting off gas cans at our feet (I swear I thought we were further away *winces*) repeatedly. Oh yeah, and she beta'd this fic! And also to vodou-blue who is, as usual, heavily responsible for the story being comprehensible and came through for me again, despite the very eleventh hour nature of my sad, sad pleas *grins* One day she won't be around to wield the red-pen and then everyone is going to be very sorry. Mostly me *dryly* Thanks as well to the lovely melanth0 who did some wonderful drawings to illustrate this story! Posted for Undead Big Bang Round I


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